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Sunday, September 18, 2005

I've had better weeks....

It's been since HNT since I've posted. I've just completed "The Week From Hell". I usually have this week prior to every Symphony concert, but this week was particularly difficult. Not only did I have the Symphony to deal with (and every person's petty problems), I had HNT and gigs interfering. There were some great moments, and there were some not-so-great moments. Here's a brief rundown:

Every day since two Thursdays ago has had me involved either in a rehearsal or performance lasting a minimum of 2 hours. In some cases they overlapped. The only day off--last Thursday, which thankfully gave me time to look over the HNT pics.

Wednesday--In Cahoots/Mob Rules Horns play for the last Alive @ 5 party in downtown Helena. A great turnout and a great day! Cold beer flowing, people dancing, everyone enjoying themselves. As darkness comes, that's when most people get out and dance. We've got them in the palm of our hand. During our last set, I started taking pics from the stage, like I always do. A guy asks if we'd like him to get some shots from out front. I said yes, and gave him my camera. He comes back after a few minutes and says he got a few, but the lighting was bad (which it was). We end the night with an encore, and as I'm playing, the same guy comes up and does that "camera" sort of pantomime--can he take more pics? I figure, why not? I'll tell you why not--THE FUCKER NEVER CAME BACK WITH MY CAMERA!!!! That's right--he stole it! Being the trusting soul that I am, I'm hoping he just "walked away" with it, and he's been trying to figure out how to get it back to me. But I may have to face reality next week. I don't want to hear from any of you about what a fool I was--I've had strangers take pictures of us for years and have never had a problem.

And rather than hunt him down, I had to leave to catch the tail end of a Symphony rehearsal I'd been missing. So, what should have been a great night was reduced to a downer. What could possibly pull me out of that (besides more beer)? Why, HNT, of course!

I still haven't been able to clean up the Nekkid roll yet. Maybe in the morning. I'm glad that I caught some of you off-guard with my HNT story! When I finally get links cleaned up, I'm guessing we'll be over 180 Nekkid people for the week. Lots of newbies! A few returnees. And a couple who have resigned/retired/given up. I have mixed feelings about that. While I've enjoyed the participation, I hate to see people go. Hopefully they'll make some guest appearances from time to time....

From the time that I posted my HNT pic, to the time I came back to the comments (maybe 10-15 minutes), I had 46 comments! Plus the dozen I had on my prior post telling me they were up. You people are nuts!!! I love it!!! I'm clueless as to what I'm going to do this week--I HAVE NO CAMERA!!!

Friday night--Another gig. This time for Oktoberfest. We had the 7:00-8:30 PM time slot. Not the greatest, since the drunks aren't out yet, but we had alot of kids and their parents out dancing, so that was fun. We play under a tent (about 150 yards long!!!) with lots of beer being poured, and food vendors vending. Again, we kicked butt, but then I had to go to another Symphony rehearsal that I'd been missing. No beer for me!

Symphony--Rehearsals were a bitch. No one seemed prepared for this concert. A feeling like September is to be spent gearing up for the rest of the season. There were personnel problems--positions in the orchestra that weren't filled, or filled at the last minute. Which is my responsibility. So that's where the majority of my stress came from this week. No sleep, plus all this other stuff going on--I haven't been so happy to be done with a concert in my life!

The concert was tonight. Played to an almost full house, which is unheard of in these parts! Overall, the audience liked it. From a player's standpoint, it was not a great performance. Lots of lapses of concentration, lots of uncertainty that comes from that, and just not one of our best nights. HOWEVER, the piano soloist we featured was phenomenal (and we DID play her concerto very well....). The audience loved it, but I know I'm going to hear about it next week about how unprepared everyone was. Personally, I played pretty well, but it wasn't a tough concert on my end (thank God). In fact, it bordered upon boring. I've provided short clips from the two biggest moments I had all evening. This isn't us playing, though. The first is Sorcerer's Apprentice (playing the trombone solo part that you can barely hear), and the second is the ending of Bolero (where everything is loud, and the trombones get to be obnoxious at the end!). CAUTION: You may want to turn the volume down on the player here....